Close quarters: Lamont Peterson, right, who upset Amir Khan last December. says he's happiest when he's preparing for a fight.

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The 28-year-old boxing champion has felt the heat since he tested positive for a banned substance in May, two weeks ahead of his title rematch against Amir Khan, whom Peterson stunned in front of his hometown Washington fans last December.

Peterson, whose fascinating life story includes growing up homeless and living on the streets of the nation's capital at times with his younger brother, lost plenty when that Olympic-style test, which he requested, came back positive for synthetic testosterone. The Khan rematch, a million-dollar payday, his biggest ever, his WBA belt, which was stripped from him in July, and most painfully, his reputation as he and his team, including longtime trainer and manager Barry Hunter, listened to the world label him a cheat, a fraud and a fake.

One thing Peterson never lost was his dignity. He faded into the background and quietly went about the business of living, telling anyone who asked that he was not a cheater. He never stopped being the gym rat he's always been.

The first week after it happened, he said, was tough.

"But the one thing that made me feel better was I asked myself, 'Did I do anything wrong? Am I a cheater? Did I cheat?' and I answered all those questions, 'No,' " he told USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday. "I thought, I can't do anything about the things I can't control. The only thing I can control is what I need. So anything I had no control over, I tried not to worry about."

Peterson got the news he wanted to hear when the International Boxing Federation ruled last week that Peterson was still its 140-pound champion and mandated that he fight Zab Judah (42-7, 29 KOs), the division's top challenger.

"It was a good feeling, you know. It's like, time to go back to work," Peterson said. "I'm looking forward to defending the title. Whenever I have a fight coming up, that's the happiest I am in my life."

The news lifted the mood in Peterson's camp in a big way, yet Hunter said the boxer dealt with his troubles better than anyone around him.

"This is a young man that life couldn't knock out," Hunter said Wednesday of Peterson, who he essentially raised from childhood. "He said to me, about three weeks to a month into this whole situation, 'My whole life has been hard so I don't think this will be no different. In the end, it will all work out.'

"I can only hope that if something like that ever hit me directly, I'd have enough heart and strength to deal with it like he's dealt with it, knowing that you did nothing wrong."

The IBF ruled, based on findings by an independent physician hired by the organization, that the level of testosterone in Peterson's body was consistent with therapeutic use for abnormally low testosterone levels, which Peterson's team has always maintained, and not for performance enhancement, which Khan's camp has steadfastly insisted was the case and the reason he lost their fight last December.

Peterson admitted that his Las Vegas-based physician advised him to have testosterone pellets injected in his body last October, before his December fight with Khan. Peterson did not test positive for that fight because the D.C. Commission's testing, like most of boxing's less sophisticated testing, does not detect synthetic testosterone.

Dr. Donald Catlin, one of the founders of modern sports drug testing, who developed the carbon isotope ratio test that determines if testosterone is natural or synthetic, said during a phone interview that very few people understand the testosterone issue.

"I would not expect a boxer to know," said Catlin, a consultant expert on Peterson's case for the Las Vegas-based Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA), which did the testing on the fighter. "It doesn't mean he's a cheater. But it does mean that he broke the rules and the rules say that if you have store-bought testosterone in your system, then you get penalized.

"It's unfortunate. It's a hard way to learn it. There are a lot of athletes who get caught inadvertently. They didn't really know what they were doing, particularly when it comes to testosterone, because they don't understand how it works."

Peterson tested positive less than two weeks before his rematch with Khan, ironically during VADA's Olympic-style testing Peterson himself asked for. Peterson's urine tested positive with both the A and B samples, which are split and tested a few weeks apart. His blood test came back negative, said Hunter, who says he has become somewhat of an expert on the subject.

"One thing that needs to be cleared up: It was said that he failed a random drug test, which he never did," Hunter said. "All the tests were supposed to be random. The only test they all knew about was the one in Los Angeles, and that's the one he tested positive for. The two tests he passed were random."

Hunter said his fighter never had a chance once the positive test went public.

"When Lamont went through his thing, all along saying he was innocent, that he would never cheat, nobody was listening," Hunter said, a trace of bitterness creeping into his voice. "Before we even had a chance to tell our story, he was being blasted. I can see Amir, maybe he had questions. But they had my phone number. All they had to do was give me a call and say, 'What's the deal? What's going on?' But before Lamont could even open his mouth, it was already out there, this dude was a cheater, and that's why Amir didn't knock him out.

"Ever since Lamont won his title, it's been a blessing, but it's been more of a curse. The D.C. Commission, the judges at the fight, the referee, (the mystery man) in the black hat, now all of a sudden he's dirty.

"His real guilt is the fact that he listened to his doctor and he won a fight. That's what he's guilty of."

Hunter said he is suspicious that three well-known boxers, none of whom had ever tested positive for a banned substance in their careers, all did so within a month this summer.

"I think there's a flaw (in the testing methods) somewhere," Hunter said. "The situation with (Andre) Berto, with Lamont, and with Antonio Tarver, is that you have three guys who were amateur stars, who never tested positive for anything in their entire careers, three guys who have been taking tests since they were 17, and all of a sudden, they're popping up dirty — and they all requested the tests. I find that very strange."

Peterson's next step is to get licensed to fight. According to Keith Kizer, the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), the plan is for Peterson's application to be on the agenda when the commission meets Aug. 24. He says he's awaiting a call from Peterson's attorney but wouldn't speculate on Peterson's chances of getting licensed.

While Catlin didn't think there was any ill intent on Peterson's part in having a banned substance in his body, he said, "He was still taking testosterone, and the onus is on him to know that and to know that it's banned. If, during the (NSAC) adjudication, they want to decide that he had some degree of innocence, they can do that.

"I would be more than willing to accept that (Peterson) was in a sense, innocent, because he didn't know. But … there is a great deal of lack of knowledge in boxing. There's no education for these folks, they don't have any WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) programs, they don't have anything or anybody that attempts to educate them, which is why they're all coming up positive these days.

"There are boxers like (Floyd) Mayweather (Jr.), who grew up in the Olympic system, and has been tested for many years in the Olympic system, and know exactly what it's all about. You won't find him coming in with testosterone pellets under his skin."

If and when Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KOs) does get licensed to fight again, he said he would prefer to fight Mexican legend Juan Manuel Marquez, not Judah.

"Marquez is the fight that makes sense for me right now," Peterson said. "I look at him as the best fighter in the division. That's the person I really want to fight because I have so much respect for him. I want to be considered the best in the division, not just one of the best."

Yet, he realizes that Judah is the fight he is mandated to take, and he looks forward to fighting his good friend, probably sometime in early October and likely on the East Coast.

Judah's promoter, Kathy Duva of Main Events, said she recently got word from the IBF that the Peterson-Judah fight is mandated.

"Right now we're just exploring the possibilities. (Judah) did not indicate he was opposed to it," Duva said, saying there would be TV negotiations to deal with as well. "He's been out in the media talking about how he'd like the fight, but it's up to us to come back with a proposal. Sometimes these things lead to purse bids, sometimes they get negotiated."

Khan, meanwhile, took a fight against Danny Garcia on July 15 and was stopped in the fourth round by the undefeated Philadelphia native, who unified two titles.

Peterson has not fought since December, but when asked when he could be ready to fight again, he said with a chuckle, "next week."

"I'm always in the gym, and conditioning-wise, I'm ready," Peterson said. "I have a few pounds to shed, but realistically you need time to get all the details worked out and make sure me and Zab are comfortable with everything in the contract. Hopefully early October we can be in the ring fighting.

"When that bell rings, I'll be in there doing what I always do — trying to knock my opponent out."

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